


Red Sky at Night

by TheQueenAndTheBee



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Banter, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Deaf Clint Barton, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Baggage, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Existential Angst, F/M, Female Friendship, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Imagine Wandavision but without the pain, Implied Sexual Content, Late Night Conversations, Minor Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau, Not Canon Compliant, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Resurrection, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29843136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueenAndTheBee/pseuds/TheQueenAndTheBee
Summary: After the events of 'Endgame', Wanda decides to return back to Edinburgh alone to rebuild her life from the ground-up once again. However, when Carol appears on her doorstep with a USB stick containing Vision's soul, Wanda finds that she may have a chance at a happy ending after all.Exploring what it means to grieve, to heal, and to find love in its many forms, 'Red Sky at Night' is a romantic comedy about two broken souls finding one another in every lifetime.
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 8
Kudos: 52





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Marvel or any of the characters in this story. All rights belong to their respective owners. This work is entirely for entertainment and no profit is being made from it. Please do not repost to any other website.
> 
> The title is taken from "Cold Days From the Birdhouse" by The Twilight Sad. Please listen to this song: it is a Wanda/Vision ANTHEM.
> 
> The final episode of Wandavision is coming out tomorrow and I, quite frankly, am not ready for the level of emotional devastation it's going to cause me. So I decided to write this fic as a means of healing the damage done by the MCU's abysmal treatment of Wanda and to finally give her and Vision the happy ending they deserve. (Plus, as you probably can tell from my other work, domestic Wanda/Vision is my favourite thing in the world right now!)
> 
> Comments and kudos are hugely appreciated. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy! :)

Wanda Maximoff didn’t have a lot of intention for her life.

She wasn’t born into money or status, and she didn’t have any inclination to acquire much of either. Her brother, Pietro, had mocked her lack of ambition but it didn’t bother her much. They had shared a womb and that was all; his goals spiralled out before him and out of his reach, and he insisted that Wanda help lift him up to grab them. She was not in the habit of saying ‘no’, and so she had followed him without question until next thing she knew she could move things with her mind and Sokovia fell to the ground. Despite it all she loved him as her brother and best friend, and when he died it was like a chasm had been torn open in her chest.

As life went on, the chasm became a canyon, the bodies of those she loved and who left her plummeting into the depths to be kept locked behind her ribs. She carried them with her, a walking graveyard. By the time she had to bury Vision in the depths of her heart, she was little more than a shell, ready to break. 

After everything that had happened in that final battle, Wanda decided that she had had enough of being ‘super’ (whatever that meant). Vision’s body was in Wakanda and presumably buried, and the other Avengers were so wrapped up in their grief around Tony Stark that it hadn’t been hard to quietly cut those cords and escape to somewhere better.

She had fallen in love with Scotland when she and Vision had lived there, and so she had returned to the apartment they had bought together. It was never meant to be their forever home, but it was uniquely theirs, still full of the furniture they had picked out from IKEA and Vision had made a total mess of assembling. The apartment, uninhabited for five years, was bathed in must and the perfume of their domestic evenings watching television and sharing secrets until the sun came up in the morning. She clutched the key in her hand and walked across the threshold where before she had been carried, and for the first time in a long while she allowed herself to cry. 

Her powers were kept to herself, a convenience rather than a calling. She became friends with the locals because they didn’t know her as a threat, and she worked the early shift at the bakery as an assistant, because it turns out being a superhero didn’t give you many transferable skills. But she made the cakes bake quicker than they would on their own, and she was a wonderful conversationalist, so the locals adopted her into the fold with easy invitations to town fetes and a seat at the monthly book club. She had weekly therapy sessions with a woman called Agnes over Skype and slowly, uncertainly, she was pulling the bodies from her heart and giving them the burials they deserved.

She wasn’t unhappy, nor was she happy. But she was healing, and that was more than she felt entitled to have.

*

Wanda had seen some weird shit in her time: a giant purple tyrant who ruined her life with the snap of his fingers, a one-hundred year old man who thought a shield the size of a dinner-plate was a valid weapon, a talking raccoon. 

And yet seeing Carol Danvers biting her nails on her doorstep was definitely in the top ten.

“Carol?” she frowned, pulling her peacoat tighter around her.

The blonde, still clad in her leather armour, looked up from nibbling on her thumb and offered her a lazy smile. 

“Hey Red. Long time, no see.”

She got up and sauntered over, clapping Wanda on the shoulder. She knew that Carol was strong, but the friendly thump rattled her teeth and she groaned. “W-what are you doing here? How did you know I was here?”

“Yeah, your ‘secret hideout’? Not that well thought out, it turns out.”

Wanda stared at her, taking in the other woman. Carol hadn’t changed much since the battle, although her hair was a little longer and her eyes were a little sadder. Her posture had slumped a little with the weight of someone who had experienced loss and wore it like a cape. Wanda could see past the sardonic little grin that seemed to be the blonde’s default, and despite herself she pulled Carol into a hug. 

Carol stiffened against her, if only for a moment, before she reluctantly sank into Wanda’s embrace. She wrapped her arms around her and buried her face in the crook of her neck, hiding behind the strawberry lengths of Wanda’s hair. 

“I feel like we need to talk,” Wanda whispered and Carol nodded, pulling back and coughing awkwardly. 

She swiped at the tears that had pooled in her eyes impatiently, and the dead-eyed grin was back on her face. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.”

Had the situation been any different, Wanda might have laughed at the image of Carol perched on her lumpy sofa, eyeing Wanda’s dog Sparky warily as the scruffy terrier wagged his tail by her feet. Wanda stirred a lump of sugar into the tea she had poured, using the sunflower teacup that Vision had bought her from a flea market back when they had first moved to Edinburgh. It was chipped a little at the rim and he had handed it to her with an apologetic look on his face.

“I thought it gave it character,” he’d bumbled, rubbing the back of his neck as Wanda turned it this way and that. “It’s a bit naff, I know.”

She had brushed away his concerns and kissed him gratefully, cradling his face as he smiled into her touch. They had made love that night and every caress felt like a promise between them, a turning point that neither of them could comprehend the grandiosity of until it was perhaps too late. 

Wanda shook away the memory and leant over to hand Carol the cup. She took it, her grip awkward in the delicate handle. She sipped at the milky tea and nodded appreciatively as Wanda fixed her own.

“You have a nice place,” she said awkwardly, gesturing to the living room. 

“It’s not much, but it’s home,” Wanda shrugged, smiling slightly as she looked around her space. 

Since moving back in Wanda had done her best to cater the space to her tastes in a way that she couldn’t when living with a supercomputer. She had filled the space with paintings she’d sourced from charity shops and books were piled high from floor to ceiling. Every free surface was covered with house plants and photographs that held memories that persisted beyond the end of the world. A shot of her and Pietro on the beach before their parents died beamed out from the bookshelf, and a well-worn photograph of Vision bemusedly preparing dinner in a floral pinafore perched next to the TV. 

Carol followed her gaze to the photograph and she hummed. “You miss him.”

“Every damn day,” Wanda confirmed, taking a drag from her novelty “I Love Dick (Van Dyke)” mug that Clint had sent her last Christmas. 

“Well, what if I could help with that?”

Wanda dropped the mug and Sparky skipped over to lap the tea up from the laminate floor. “Carol, I’m flattered, but I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.”

“Christ, not like that,” Carol scoffed, shaking her head. “I mean, not to say I wouldn’t, but living in fucking Scotland is not my idea of a good time.”

“Then what the hell are you talking about?” 

Carol smiled and rummaged in her boot, pulling out a wallet, an envelope, an aventurine crystal, a crumpled picture of her and another woman singing karaoke, and a cough sweet. When she glanced up to see Wanda’s bemused expression, she just shrugged and said, “The armour doesn’t come with pockets.”

Finally, she gave triumphant yelp and pulled out a USB stick with a flourish. She handed it to Wanda, who squinted at it. “What’s this meant to be?”

“That,” Carol said, leaning back with a satisfied grin, “is Vision.”

*

Wanda hadn’t wanted to keep many souvenirs from her time with the Avengers. Despite what she had hoped, they were not her family; they barely even trusted her, chaining her up like she was some kind of rabid animal and locking her in their Tower. The only one she even moderately cared about outside of Vision was Clint, who had taken her on without hesitation. 

So when she had made her hasty escape, she hadn’t felt bad about stealing the MacBook that Stark had left on the kitchen counter one day.

She watched as Carol plugged the USB key in, typing in codes and loading files that may as well have been gibberish to Wanda. She bit at her thumb to try and give her nerves a point of focus, but her entire world was beginning to blur for the hundredth time and all she wanted was for this moment to be over. 

Vision was dead. She had seen it with her own two eyes, had been the one to rip the stone out of his head. She had felt him and felt him until suddenly she could not, and that pain was as visceral as a gunshot. So when Carol explained that Shuri had managed to collect most of Vision’s data and had uploaded it onto a memory stick while she continued work on repairing his body, it was safe to say that she was a little thrown by the whole thing.

“We debated waiting until he was completed,” Carol had explained, plucking a wayward feather from her hair where Wanda had accidentally exploded a pillow, “but it seemed kinder to let you be with him as soon as possible.” 

And so here they were, huddled over the messy desk still covered in her and Vision’s collected crap, rebuilding the love of her life with a few taps of a keyboard. 

A figure began to pixelize on the screen and Wanda shot a sweaty palm out to grab Carol’s shoulder. The blonde looked at her as she whispered, “I don’t think I can do this.” 

Carol’s eyes bore into her, her mouth set in a straight line that to anyone else would have looked like frustration, but Wanda knew to be concern. She put her hand over Wanda’s and gave it an emphatic squeeze. “You’re Wanda fucking Maximoff. Yes you can.” 

And that reassurance was all she needed.

Wanda took a deep breath and nodded. Carol pressed ‘enter’, and there, smiling out of the screen as beatific and beautiful as he had been on the day he was made, was Vision.


	2. 2

Falling in love with Vision was perhaps the easiest thing Wanda has ever done.

As a child, she had devoured old sitcoms, living vicariously through the antique world that they portrayed, however inaccurately or idilic. She saw herself in Lucille Ball, a whirlwind with red hair, and wanted nothing more than to be with a partner who laughed at her jokes and was devoted to her entirely.

It had seemed like an impossible dream the older she got. Real life, she found, was a lot harsher than the one in black-and-white. In this world, love was used as a bartering chip for ambition and misery was the currency. The universe had made her that childhood fantasy out of metal and magic and all of the secrets it held close to its chest, only to tear it away from her as soon as she dared to believe it.

After one lays in their parents’ ashes for two days, or cradles their brother’s bullet-ridden body, or rips the life-force out of their soulmate, it is fairly common for the rose-tinted spectacles to shatter right into one’s eyes.

Wanda knew that she was not scripted for happiness, and as the years went by it was a fact she had come to accept.

So why, then, was Vision reincarnated onto a screen before her?

“Vis? Is it really you?” she whispered.

His eyes softened and a gentle smile spread across his face. “Yes, my love.”  
  
Wanda wrapped her arms around her chest, glancing at Carol uncertainly. “It isn’t… a programme, or…?”  
  
“Well, I mean, _technically_ he is,” she shrugged. “He’s an android. But make no mistake, that right there is your Vision. Just a slightly new model.”

Wanda lowered herself into the office chair and reached out to press her hand against the screen. Vision mirrored her, bringing his own up so that they were touching. She couldn’t feel him, nor process his warmth, and the reality of the entire situation suddenly became too overwhelming to bear. Wanda pulled away, ignoring the look of hurt on Vision’s face as she got to her feet.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said, rushing out of the door and down the hallway.

Once she reached the bathroom she locked herself in and pressed her head against the stark white tiles. They were cool against her skin, just as her laptop screen had been, and Wanda squeezed her eyes shut tightly: all she wanted in that moment was warmth. She thudded her head dully against the wall a few times, relishing in the deep-seated pain that ran through her body. At least that was real.

“He’s real,” she whispered to herself. “Come on, Wanda, _idioate!_ That’s _him_!”

She wanted to believe it. Truly, she did.

*

When Wanda stepped back into the bedroom, Carol had her feet up on the desk and was asking an ever-increasingly weary Vision all sorts of obscure questions.

“What’s the length of the Eiffel Tower in Subway foot longs?”

“ 1063 feet,” he said, before adding desperately, “Please stop asking me to measure things with sandwiches.”

“Okay, how about Rubix Cubes?”  
  
Wanda smiled and, finally taking pity on him, coughed. Vision’s face exploded into a grin as she entered the room fully, waving meekly at him. Carol looked between the two and hummed, before standing up and giving Wanda another one of those bone-breaking shoulder slaps. “I’ll leave you two to it. You probably have a lot of… _catching up_ to do.”

Wanda decisively ignored Carol’s enthusiastic eyebrow wiggle and instead focused on Vision, who stared back at her with a sense of calm that radiated out and embraced her. It was almost as good as the physical thing, and she allowed herself to be guided to the chair opposite him. She sat and leant her cheek on her palm.

“You look good, Wanda,” he murmured, running his eyes across her face appreciatively. “Beautiful, in fact.”

“Still a charmer, I see,” she snorted and he shook his head.

“Simply honest.”

“ Thank you. You look…” She shook her head, laughing once in disbelief, “alive.”

“Yes, it requires a bit of adjusting for the both of us, I feel.” His face softens and he reaches out to her once more, before thinking secondly of it and retracting his hand. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” she blurted, and before she even had time to process it she was crying. Agnes had made it clear to her that crying was good, that it was a release of one’s emotions, but it still mortified her than anyone saw that crack in her armour.

Vision, however, didn’t react at all. He simply sat and watched her with a serene sort of sadness that on anyone else would look condescending. But in Vision, Wanda saw it for what it was: a silent indicator that he w as there for her when she was ready. A promise that he saw her and was on her team. Even with the snot bubble that was protruding from her nostril.

When she felt that she could finally breathe, Wanda cleared her throat and smiled bashfully at him. “Sorry. That was… I don’t know _what_ that was.”

“That was healthy,” he said gently.

“Yeah, well… my therapist has been really good for all that.” She shrugged as his eyes widened. “Yeah, I have a therapist now.”

“Goodness.” He tilted his head, considering her. “You’ve certainly come a long way since I last saw you.”

“It’s strange the difference a few years can make,” she agreed, playing with her fingers. “I don’t know, I just reached a point where it felt like – like I was floating in dark waters, and I had a choice to make: let the water pull me under or swim to shore. And the swimming was exhausting, and long, and the water just kept churning around me, and I think deep down I just wanted to drown but… I didn’t. I reached the shore before I even realised it.”

She kept her eyes to the hem of her skirt, fully aware of Vision’s attention on her and determined to resist the temptation to meet his gaze. This was different, this _fear_ of interacting with him. In the Tower, he had been the only person she had let see her pain. He had taken her hand and allowed her to cry, had told her that grief is love persevering. He didn’t try to dismiss her feelings, nor placate her. He had simply let her be, and she had appreciated that.

He was doing that now, and it should have felt the same. That sense of peace, of safety, that she felt in his arms and his presence should have been there. But instead, all Wanda felt was shame. She didn’t want him to know she was hurting, because…

She shook her head. She would not entertain that line of thought. So instead she brushed down her dress and fixed on a plaster smile. She faced Vision.

“How about we watch TV?”

*

The opening credits of _Modern Family_ blasted out through the living room, peppy and upbeat as Wanda took a swig of her rosé . The pastel tingle did its best to soothe her, and she closed her eyes to try and savour the raspberry undertones. Back in the Tower she had described all of her food and drink to Vision, painting a picture for him so that he could enjoy it as much as she did. Through her words they sat at tables in Parisian streets savouring buttery croissants, enjoyed the tang of som tum under the glow of Loy Krathong fireworks, sipped at earthy espressos as they glided down Italian canals.

They had been united in their shared imagination, and when they settled in Edinburgh they would excitedly plan their travels for when her undercover life came to an end.

But, like most things in Wanda’s life, this fantasy was to remain in her mind. And now that Vision was limited to a stable WiFi connection, it seemed that this would continue.

She glanced at the laptop next to her. Vision was angled towards the television and he was watching intently, smiling that glorious smile that filled his entire face and posture. He was leant forward, his eyes darting across the screen as he took in the action. When he laughed, he threw his head back, the joy so loud it almost blew her speakers. Her body ached to touch him, and she let her fingers tentatively trail along the mousepad.

“ I think I might be Phil, you know,” Vision mused, craning his neck to face her.  
  
“I can see that. So does that make me Claire?”

“‘Note to Wanda: if you want intense family drama, rent _Spy Kids_ .’”

Vision cackled as Wanda choked on her wine, spraying it all over the screen.

“Too soon!” she wheezed, wiping her hand across her mouth and glaring at him playfully.

Vision smiled at her and this time it was wholly gentle. “You know I’m only teasing, darling.”

“And I guess it’s not like you’re wrong,” she acquiesced. “Dead parents, brother was murdered by a robot, android boyfriend reincarnated as a toaster.”

“If you bloody start with the sandwich questions…”

Wanda cackled and sidled closer to the laptop. It had heated up considerably, and if she closed her eyes and pretended hard enough, it could almost simulate body heat. Wanda smiled and turned up the volume: she was good at pretending.


	3. 3

The Pentland Hills came alive in the trailing ends of winter, crisp with snow and air that burnt one’s lungs if they breathed in hard enough. The waterfall tumbled into the lakes in a delicate cascade, like wool unspooling, and rogue sheep who had strayed a little too far from their flock came to the water’s edge to slake their thirst before continuing on their quest for home.

With air so fresh it was impossible for one’s head not to clear itself, and so Wanda often found she would go there to think.

Wrapped up in a parka and her tatty alpaca fur scarf, Wanda sat atop the highest hill she could find and watched the world idly pass her by. Sparky lay slumped by her feet, exhausted from the five minutes he spent walking before Wanda gave up and carried him the rest of the way. Clouds danced above and below her, enough to make her believe that she was perhaps in Heaven.

(Of course, Wanda had long since accepted that she wasn’t going wherever it was good people ended up, but it was nice to imagine.)

She fiddled with her phone, buried deep in her pocket. Her case was a rubber one shaped like a Moomin, a hand-me-down from her employer, Frank’s, daughter. Her phone wallpaper was one she had taken of Vision back when they first lived in Edinburgh. They had gone to the Royal Botanic Garden, and he had gotten on his hands and knees to stare into the giant lily-pad pond to try and point out some koi fish he had spotted. The pink flowers were in full bloom and beams of sunlight reflected on the dark waters. Vision had grown his hair out a little, so it flopped over his eyes as he smiled excitedly up at the camera. It was like a Renaissance painting, all pastel strokes of colour and perfection.

She ran her thumb down the front of her screen, before she loaded up FaceTime and clicked on his name. The phone rang twice before his face filled the screen.

“Wanda? Can you hear me?” he asked, frowning. “The connection’s been spotty all day.”

“It _is_ trying to accommodate the existence of an all-knowing android,” she reasoned.

“True. Your 4G must be up to snuff if your connection’s that good up a mountain.”

“How did you know I was up a mountain?” she frowned.

“I mean, I _am_ linked to your Cloud. ‘Find My Phone’ and all that.” He sounded sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry. I realise how creepy that is now.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I just… I forget that you’re not, like… _independent_ any more.”

“Yes, I find it is a bit frustrating.” His expression became wistful. “I’d love to have come hiking with you.”

Wanda bit her lip before flipping the camera around so that he wasn’t looking at her face, but rather at the sprawling landscape that surrounded her. Vision’s eyes widened and his lips parted slightly, before spreading out into a peaceful smile. “I missed it here.”

“So did I.” Wanda ran her fingers through the fur at Sparky’s scruff, soothing herself in his solidity and softness. “It was the only place I could think of going to after everything happened. I know you left the deed for the place in New Jersey but I – I couldn’t bear the idea of going and… well.”

“I know,” he said gently.

“Maybe one day, I’ll be ready,” she continued. “But for now, I think that this is the best place for me to be.”

They sat in silence, watching a farmer way down below them herd his string of sheep down the beaten track. They marched in formation, prompted by a bounding fleck of grey that Wanda assumed was a dog. She glanced fondly at Sparky, who was snuffling in his sleep. His hind leg was twitching, and she hoped he was having good dreams.

“Oh, look at that!”

Wanda blinked and looked down at her phone. Vision narrowed his eyes, trying to make sense of something that she wasn’t quite sure of. “What?”

“There’s a flower!” He pointed, before realising how superfluous it was and lowering his hand slowly.

Wanda looked around, only seeing grass and snow, until at last a single sprout caught her eye. It was a tiny white plant with a vibrant yellow heart, beating bright and colourful against the winter gloom surrounding it. She brought the camera closer for Vision’s benefit and he hummed thoughtfully.

“ _Primula_ Gigha, if I’m not mistaken. That’s a fair way from home; it’s a native of the Hebridic islands.”

“It’s lovely,” Wanda murmured, feeling its ivory petals lightly. It was silken, like the skirts of a wedding gown.

“ Do you know,” he said, a slight smile in his voice, “that in traditional Victorian flower language, the primrose translates as ‘I can’t live without you’?”

Wanda could have laughed if it wasn’t all so tragic. With a delicate movement, she plucked the dainty flower and placed it in her pocket to press later. Vision raised his eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Really, what was there to say that wasn’t whispered by the flower anyway?

*

“Go for Clint.”

Wanda tightened her dressing gown as the bath water swirled down the drain, placing the phone on speaker and wrapping her hair in a towel.

“Hey Bird Brain, just returning your call.”

“Why hello there, Little Witch ,” he chuckled. “How’s my favourite baker of mass destruction ?”

“ Oh, you know… surviving,” she said dismissively.

“Wanda. I may be Deaf but I know bullshit when I hear it.” He grunted, no doubt hauling himself off of his sofa. “You may as well tell me what the matter is, because – _Cooper, put your brother down!_ ”  
  
Wanda giggled as she heard the eldest Barton child whinge in the background.

“I’ve been colleagues with one of the best scientists in the world for years, I _know_ that there is no ‘verified’ science experiment that calls for you to use your brother as a toilet brush!”

As Clint bickered with his son, Wanda allowed her mind to drift back to her own childhood. Before the explosion that had killed her parents, she and Pietro had actually been quite cheerful kids. Their prank wars were legendary in their street, mainly because the Maximoff twins always ended up accidentally causing havoc for their neighbours as well. There was one incident that involved blocking the entire neighbourhood’s plumbing with knock-off Polly Pocket dolls that had them grounded for a week.

“Sorry about that,” Clint huffed, clearly having settled somewhere quieter.

“Kids will be kids,” Wanda smiled and he chuckled.

“That’s certainly true. Whether we like it or not.” There was a moment of quiet before Clint spoke once more, quieter and more concerned than before. “So what’s up, buttercup?”

Wanda sighed and wrapped her free arm around her waist, trying to physically restrict the roiling in her stomach. “Well… things have kind of gone in a different direction here since I last spoke to you.”

“Like what? Frank trying to make cronuts again?” Clint spat in disgust. “Disgusting impostor of a pastry, if you ask me.”

“No, no, nothing so terrible,” she laughed weakly. “It’s um, well… Vision’s alive.”

The pause that followed was so loud, Wanda almost dropped the phone. Her heart slammed against her ribs with enough force to crack them, and she found her grip tightening against the plastic of her phone-case. “Clint? Please say something.”

“Huh,” Clint said, his voice decidedly flat. “That tricky bastard still owes me $5 from a card game.”

“I don’t think he’d be able to pay you back right now,” she said, heaving a sigh of relief at the mildness of Clint’s response. “He’s kind of stuck in my computer.”

“There’s Bitcoin, isn’t there?” Clint began to laugh at his own joke, before stopping abruptly. “Hang on. Did you say he’s _in your computer_ ?”

“That’s right. Shuri managed to get his programming extracted and she uploaded it to a USB stick while she’s rebuilding his body. Carol Danvers delivered it.”

“Oh, so she has time to drop off your boyfriend but claims she’s too busy to accept my offer of grabbing a Starbucks together,” he huffed. “You think you know someone.”

“Please Clint, this is quite a big deal.”

“I know, buttercup. I’m not trying to invalidate that,” he said gently. “It’s just… a lot to process. Pardon the computer pun.”

“I still haven’t really wrapped my head around it myself,” she replied, rubbing her temple wearily. “It all feels like a dream, you know? Like I’m going to snap out of it any second and I’ll be napping in the bakery storeroom again.”

“Bet that does wonders for Frank’s health rating.”

“Clint.”

“Sorry. Look,” he sighed, taking a slurp from what was undoubtedly a flagon of coffee, “I can’t even begin to imagine how this must be for you. You’ve spent years mourning the guy and suddenly he’s back and replacing your Alexa. I’d be worried about you if you _didn’t_ freak out a little. But Wan, this is such an incredible opportunity. You’d be a fool to waste it.”

Wanda’s throat constricted and tears pooled in her eyes. For what would not be the first or the last time in so many days, she began to cry. In a small voice, she managed to squeak out, “What if he goes again?”

“But what if he _stays_ ? Wanda,” he continued, his voice catching a little on the final syllable, “if I had the chance to bring Nat back, I would. Without any consideration or hesitation. She was my best friend. So when your _soulmate_ comes back, be that in your computer or in a possessed Annabelle doll, you seize that chance. You owe it to yourself to be happy. You _deserve_ to be happy.”

The heat from the bath had begun to dissipate, and the steam that had clouded the mirror was fading away. Wanda saw herself, skin raw and eyes red-rimmed, and froze. Because for the first time since she’d pulled out Vision’s life-force like a sword from a stone, there was a glimmer in her eyes. A tiny, desperate glint of hope. She sniffed and wiped at her face with the cuff of her sleeve, smiling weakly.

“You’ve become a real softy, do you know that?”

“Hey, that Quill guy gave me one of those super-tracker arrows. I’m not above sending one your direction if you keep spreading those rumours around,” he said with a gruff playfulness that always set Wanda at ease. He had truly stepped up for her since losing Pietro, and the unconditional love that he and his family showed her was something she would always treasure. “You feeling better?”

“Much. Thank you, Clint.”

“Anytime, buttercup.” He went to say something else, before a yelp and what sounded like crockery smashing sounded in the distance. “Fuck me, if they’ve been surfing down the stairs on their mom’s silverware again… listen Wanda, I’ve gotta go.”

“No, no, you go. I’ve taken enough of your time.”

“Oh Wanda, I’m always going to have time for you,” he said softly. Before she could begin to well up again, he quickly added, “Unless it was you who smashed my vase that time you came to visit.”

“Gotta go, send my love to Laura and the kids!” She hung up before he could force a confession out of her and pocketed her phone. With a sigh, she looked back into the mirror and offered herself a small smile.

She was okay.

*

When she reached the bedroom, Vision’s eyes were entirely glazed over to the point where he didn’t notice her entering the room. She coughed and he shook himself awake, looking around wildly before coming to a stop at Wanda. She shuffled slightly as his eyes dragged their way down from her face to her thighs, his gaze momentarily stopping at the point where her dressing gown parted slightly and the curve of the sides of her breasts were visible. He licked his lips unconsciously, and a shot of heat coursed through her body.

“How was your bath?” he said eventually, his voice a little tight.

“It was lovely, thanks. How was your… what were you doing?”

“Watching cat videos on YouTube,” Vision replied, all sensuality gone from his expression as a goofy smile split across his face. “One got its head stuck in a trumpet.”

“ Sparky managed to do that once. Although it was a trombone and he actually climbed inside.” She picked up her laptop and brought it to rest beside her on the bed. She laid on her side, cradling her head with her forearm. “We ruined the summer carnival.”

“Heathens,” he said playfully, scrunching his nose as he grinned at her.

They settled into a comfortable silence, simply watching each other as they listened to the distant traffic below. Moonlight pooled through the skylight above the bed, and Wanda allowed herself to look up at it. She wondered if Carol was up there, patrolling space with the Skrulls.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

She hummed inquisitively, opening eyes she didn’t even realise she had closed to peek at Vision. His head was tilted as he considered her, blissful in this moment of peace. He waved slightly at her as she refocused on him. “Hi.”

“Hello,” she murmured, arching her back a little to settle into a stretch. Her robe fell to the side a little more and she heard Vision’s breath hitch at the movement. “Are you perving on me, Vis?”

“‘Perving’ implies something dirty and wrong,” he challenged. “If you were admiring the Venus de Milo, would you say it was ‘perving’, or appreciating a thing of unquestionable beauty?”

“Sounds like something a perve would say,” she winked and he rolled his eyes fondly.

“Wanda Maximoff, total romantic.”

She rolled over to face him once again and trailed a finger along the side of his face, and although neither of them could feel a thing, when he leant into it she could almost convince herself otherwise. “I didn’t say I minded you looking. In fact, I was just thinking that I rather like it.”

“Well that’s good, as that seems to be all I can do in these circumstances.” He smiled gently and pressed his forehead against the screen. “How fortunate I am to have such a splendid view.”

“And how fortunate I am to have you.” Wanda swallowed, ducking her head slightly so he couldn’t see the build-up of emotion on her face. “I’m so happy you’re back, Vis.”

“As am I, darling. To be by your side again, cybernetically or otherwise, is a blessing I didn’t think I deserved.”

They lay there once more, swathed in moonlight as a bride and her hens drunkenly sang ABBA songs in the bar across the road, and the streetlights outside glimmered like the wayward constellations of fallen stars. The primrose sat dry on the bedside table, its yellow heart pulsating to the time of their breathing as city life undulated in the streets below. Wanda allowed herself to fall asleep as Vision watched her, and her dreams were peaceful that night. This moment, for all its fragility, was enough.


End file.
